[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by p911dad

Along this line, Kurt Vonnegut's first novel, Player Piano, is about this future of no jobs because of automation. He wrote it back in 1952. As I recall (without re-reading it all these years later - I am sure someone here will correct me - only the engineers still had jobs. And now here we are, it's happening, especially for all those folks without the benefit of saleable skills.

That's actually not true. Trade jobs are in many cases in higher demand than college educated white collar professional jobs. We have several consecutive generations that were brianwashed into thinking that college was the only route to success. In the meantime every high school started focusing only on standardized test scores to obtain funding, and eliminated their shop, auto, welding, home economics, and other practical courses. I know plenty of people in the trades that make far more money than many college educated folks, and they are desperate to find qualified help. You can outsource your IT department to India, but you can't outsource fixing the broken toilet!

Good article on the topic. I have three kids, if one of them decided they wanted to go into a skilled trade I would be all for it.

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/04/25/605092520/high-paying-trade-jobs-sit-empty-while-high-school-grads-line-up-for-university